Book Review: The Firebrand and the First Lady

In her book The Firebrand and the First Lady – Portrait of a Friendship, Patricia Bell-Scott successfully marries the kind of scholarship expected of an academic with the kind of accessibility that will make this book interesting to all readers.

I was especially eager to read this book because I’ve known Pat Bell-Scott for decades — since we were members in the National Association for Women in Education. She also is the editor of Life Notes: Personal Writings of Contemporary Black Women, in which I had the opportunity to contribute a chapter.  

As I read this book about the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Pauli Murray, my admiration for Roosevelt deepened and Murray became my hero. The book revealed new details about Roosevelt’s courage and her fight for civil rights and social justice, and showed how Murray lived many lifetimes in her time with us. She showed us that the way may not be smooth, but it is our duty to keep pushing forward, to reach for the brass ring, and to challenge injustice wherever it occurs and from whomever it emanates.

This book is contemporary in that it plots the path from overt racial segregation to what our country is experiencing today around diversity and inclusion. Bell-Scott tells us that Murray’s “first fiery essay” was “Who Is to Blame for Disappearance of Gaines?”

Lloyd Lionel Gaines was am African American who was denied admittance to the University of Missouri School of Law. It was speculated that he may have been murdered as a result of the Supreme Court decision that supported his case that the University could not deny this highly qualified applicant admission based on his race.

Murray’s essay could well define the current climate in which students are demanding the elimination of what they see as structural racism. After 55 years, the University of Missouri School of Law granted Lloyd Gaines an honorary degree. Is it any wonder that generation after generation of African Americans say they can’t wait?

Bell-Scott is a role model without peer for academics and others who have a book in them that needs to be written. She worked on this book for 20 years and the results demonstrate the time, energy, and love she devoted to this work. Truly, it is more than a book. It is a spiritual acclamation of a cross-section of the lives of two women who were most distinct in their culture and context, yet had a similar strength of purpose based on their values of equity and justice.