Following in Her Footsteps
By Linda Anselmi on April 18, 2009 at 6:15 PM in Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Linda Anselmi
h/t Susan
Eleanor Roosevelt
So I have to say I was doubly thrill (being a Hillary supporter, goes without saying) to read that on May 18th Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be presented with the Eleanor Roosevelt Following in Her Footsteps Award. It is an award in celebration and honor of Eleanor Roosevelt’s legacy in human rights, equality, preserving the environment and social justice. And it is given to those whose work echos Mrs. Roosevelt’s legacy.
I can think of no one who is more fitting for this particular award and honor than Hillary Clinton.
Since we frequently get the opportunity to feature the activities and achievements of Secretary of State Clinton (some recent are here, here & here). I thought I would take this moment to highlight just a bit about the remarkable and inspiring woman that was Eleanor Roosevelt.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a niece of Theodore Roosevelt, the daughter of Teddy’s younger brother. She married Franklin in her early twenties and had 6 kids in eleven years. As she later wrote in her autobiography, “I suppose I was fitting pretty well into the pattern of a fairly conventional, quiet, young society matron.”
But life changed. As Franklin became a stronger political figure, she became a political helpmate. And after he was stricken with polio, she took on a more independent and active role as his eyes and ears to the outside world. When Franklin became president, she travel across the US and internationally, always listening and learning, giving lectures, radio broadcasts and even writing a daily newspaper column. It was a role that she would expand through out her life and even after Franklin’s death.
Young Eleanor
Eleanor Roosevelt was a tireless advocate for the underprivileged of all creeds, races and nations. And while her outspoken advocacy earned her political enemies, she was one of the most revered and beloved women of her generation. And to future generations, she symbolized the independent and politically active women of the twentieth century.
As a member of the UN’s commission on Human Rights, Eleanor took on role the of ambassador for the common man and woman. She felt her work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was her greatest legacy:
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt said throughout her life: “we are all on trial to show what democracy means.”
… It depends on what each of us does, what we consider democracy means and what we consider freedom in a democracy means and whether we really care about it enough to face ourselves and our prejudices and to make up our minds what we really want our nation to be, and what its relationship is to be to the rest of the world. The day we know that then we’ll be moral and spiritual leaders… You are going to live in a dangerous world for a quite a while I guess, but it’s going to be an interesting and adventurous one. I wish you the courage to face it. I wish you the courage to face yourselves and when you know what you really want to be and when you know what you really want to fight for, not in a war but to fight for in order to gain a peace, then I wish for you imagination and understanding. God bless you. May you win.
_________________________
Sorry, just can’t resist pointing out the Feedzilla news feeds in the far right hand column of No Quarter, below recent comments.
If you haven’t seen them yet, please check them out. There are three news feeds that cover Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Politics and Middle East Politics. It’s a great news resource.
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i.m so happy to see Hillary get this award..she deserves it.
RISE HILLARY RISE….
Go Hillary Go
Keep Rising Hillary you so deserve it!!
Im with you Foxyladi14, im so happy to see her get some of the awards she deserves!!
RISE HILLARY RISE
How wonderful for Hillary Clinton! Thank you, Linda, for bringing this award to our attention. It’s a fitting honor and I can only think that HRC is thrilled by being named. I’ve heard and read Hillary refer to Eleanor Roosevelt as a beloved role model.
Things are bad, but then there are small, important announcements like this that are a welcomed respite.
Congratulations, Madame Secretary. Well done!
NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED WILL TRY TO REPOST, FROM BITTERPOLITIZ AND IS DEF FOOD FOR THOUGHT
I was reading this article at NYT. First off, I love Hill. But I’m really not sure what I think about this. I don’t like Obama apologizing for the US, so can’t say that I like the same thing with Hill. What do you think? Is her admitting to failed policies the same as Obama apologizing for the US? I’m really conflicted about this.
Clinton Scores Points by Admitting Past U.S. Errors
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/world/americas/18diplo.html?em
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — It has become a recurring theme of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early travels as the chief diplomat of the United States: she says that American policy on a given issue has failed, and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in gratitude.
On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said here that the uncompromising policy of the Bush administration toward Cuba had not worked. That, she said, is why President Obama decided earlier this week to lift restrictions on travel and financial transfers for United States residents with relatives in Cuba.
“We are continuing to look for productive ways forward, because we view the present policy as having failed,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference in this sun-dappled capital, hours before flying to join Mr. Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
The contrition tour goes beyond Latin America. In China, Mrs. Clinton told audiences that the United States must accept its responsibility as a leading emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said the American-backed policy of sanctions against Myanmar had not been effective. And in the Middle East, she pointed out that ostracizing the Iranian government had not persuaded it to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Like other leaders around the world, Mrs. Clinton’s host, the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, responded effusively on Friday, hailing the secretary and her boss, Mr. Obama, for their view on Cuban policy, which he said took “great courage” and could utterly transform the political landscape of Latin America.
“President Obama is paving a new road,” he said. “It is recognition of the fact that previous policies have failed. Fifty years of a policy that has not generated the originally sought purposes can be called a failure.”
In fact, Mrs. Clinton’s aides clarified, she was not condemning the half-century-old trade embargo against Cuba, which the Obama administration has not yet agreed to lift. Rather, her reference was to the strict travel and financial restrictions imposed by the Bush administration.
But it hardly seemed to matter. For a senior American official — someone who almost became president — to declare that the United States had erred, makes a major impact on foreign audiences.
Mrs. Clinton drew a similarly gratified response when she said in Mexico recently that the huge American appetite for drugs was fueling the booming narcotics trade in that country and elsewhere in the region.
She repeated that message in the Dominican Republic on Friday, telling a questioner at a town hall meeting here, “We acknowledge we have a responsibility, and we have to act in concert with you.”
Regret is a new role for Mrs. Clinton, but one that she has had plenty of opportunity to observe up close. On a single trip to Africa in 1998 her husband, former President Bill Clinton, apologized for American participation in slavery; American support of brutal African dictators; American “neglect and ignorance” of Africa; American failure to intervene sooner in the Rwandan genocide of 1994; American “complicity” in apartheid; and even for a failure that occurred far from Africa — America’s slow response to the bloodshed in Bosnia.
In most cases, Mrs. Clinton has been simply disavowing a policy of the Bush White House — something she did with zeal as a Democratic candidate. But the words carry much more weight overseas. And there is some evidence that these gestures are starting to register.
On Friday, Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, welcomed the administration’s easing of travel restrictions, saying he was open to dialogue with the United States on a full range of topics, including human rights and the release of political prisoners — something Mrs. Clinton had demanded a day earlier.
“We have seen Raúl Castro’s comments and we welcome this overture,” she said. “We are taking a very serious look at it, and we will consider how we intend to respond.”
Last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, softened his tone against the United States, suggesting that Iran would make a new offer to the West on its nuclear program.
There are holdouts, of course: North Korea has greeted the Obama administration by testing a missile, ratcheting up its language and threatening to pull out of multiparty talks on its nuclear program. Mrs. Clinton, in turn, has had few warm words for North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.
But in many countries, her statements have elicited an almost palpable sense of relief. And she suggested that the Obama administration’s drive for warmer relations with old foes was just getting started.
Asked whether the United States would build bridges to hostile Latin American leaders, like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mrs. Clinton said, “Let’s put ideology aside; that is so yesterday.”
I miss the tough talking, no nonsense, never- appease-them Clinton, too. Her job is to protect the interests of this country not go abroad and appear to concede our liabilities. On the other hand, talking honestly about “co-responsibility,” and “shared efforts” after years of other countries feeling that we were neglecting a joint problem is also a highly productive and positive shift.
World leaders basically respect someone for working their way through the ranks, paying their dues and serving their time in the trenches. That’s how they got to be leaders. They can read a naive phony a mile away and don’t respect Obama waltzing onto the scene on a load of B.S. Any apology, action or negotiation from him is going to feed into the same image of flimsy incompetence that just tells our Enemies we’re weak.
If they have a perception of SoS as a strong, capable and forceful leader with the caliber and intellectual gravitas that Obama lacks, the same words of “concession” and “apology” are viewed in a very different light. They are seen as the prophecies of an “honest broker” and “forthright partner” who understands the world, nations, and leaders as well as Washington. A practically miraculous reversal from Bush unilateralism.
But it really is too soon to judge. I’m going to have to consider it more deeply as the situation progresses. A very good question !
OT Obama will not go to Durban II
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33398_Breaking-_Obama_Will_Not_Go_to_Durban_II
I feel you on the point you made however for me, there is a VERY BIG difference between Obama’s words and Secretary of State Clinton. She apologize for “errors” made. What Obama always stress and use are different because he is always attempting to point things out as “failures”. When she points out errors, it’s with a plan on how to fix it. When Obama talks about failures, he continues to talk and talk and talk and not once describe how to go about fixing it because if he did, he would never have anything else to use in his next speech. That is what separates them in my opinion.
Good! He finally did something right.
Thank G’ I cannot believe he was still thinking about it. He should have decided that looonggg ago!!
Wonderful story! I wish both women could have been President. Well, who knows–maybe Hillary someday.
A Man is only as good as the woman that backs him up.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without my strong willed wife who although she makes me roll my eyes at times looks out for my best interests which has allowed me to reach new heights.
Eleanor was the real strength behind Frank just like myself…
I love strong willed women!!
And that’s why all of us gals swoon over you Moss, and we think your wife is one lucky gal. It’s very hard, when you are a strong woman, to find someone who isn’t threatened and intimidated by it. Good for you!
You sound like a nice guy and your wife sounds great too. Glad that you appreciate it each other….
Hillary has long been an admirer of ER ;a champion and a student of her legacy. These two women share so much in common—their somewhat unusual marriages; their political involvement in human rights and working people issues; their work in the larger world; the degradation of their roles from the right.
Two of my favorite women in U.S. history: Hillary and Eleanor!
Thanks for the story!
This is wonderful news, how fitting Hillary will be given the Eleanor Roosevelt Award!
Thank you for this post Linda Anselmi; very nice indeed.
I can celebrate with everyone that she gets this award. But I can’t let go the part about her not being President because of some really deranged, sick, elitist, criminal people in the DNC. Any recognition of Hillary’s contribution to this country is, I am sure, an amazing moment for you all. But I can’t let go of why she isn’t POTUS. God Bless Hillary for standing tall, protecting America in this very desperate time, and keeping her head held high. Now, for all of you who love her, and know what happened, please take some action.
This is a wonderful award for Hillary and certainly no one could be more deserving of it.
o/t to Linda Anselmi: some time back, maybe a couple of months ago, you posted a link to the Library of Congress collection of the WPA Writers’ Project. I just want you to know that I have given most of the intervening time I spend online to reading this collection, sometimes staying up long past my usual bedtime in the way you sometimes can’t put down a really great book.
This reading has increased my understanding of the Roosevelt years immeasurably – and the 60+ years leading up to them – through the memories of ordinary Americans who lived them; and of the hardships endured by my parents’ (and even their parents’) generations. I cannot thank you enough, Linda, for sharing this gift which I did not know existed online. It has been a fascinating, educational, enriching, and yes, sometimes frightening, journey through those many pages.
I have only a few states remaining to be read, so am catching up on my favorite blogs this weekend in order to conserve them. I’m glad to see a new post by you tonight so that I can offer my gratitude.
For those who missed Linda’s original post and link, and who would welcome an opportunity to read of that chapter in American history in the words of the ones who lived it, here is a link to the homepage: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/wpahome.html Be warned, some of it is “hard” reading in our politically correct world: but as you plow through them, I think you will gain insights and a kind of understanding that perhaps you did not have, before.
Again, Linda, thank you.
Thank you shep. You have made my day, week…
I wasn’t aware that the Writers Project was digitized and available on the internet until I did the research for that piece. Though I had read actual bound copies of WPA Writers Project interviews at a local library many, many years ago. I too was fascinated and educated. And spent hours and days pouring over everything they had.
It is heart breaking to read about what the women and children endured. How the unrelenting poverty broke spirits and hearts. And yet so many managed to continually overcome the hardships. Now being online and compiled as a national collection, it really gives a richer understanding of the depth and breath of the Depression.
One of the other interesting reads I found were actual personal journals of ordinary people (they are usually a part of university’s state history collection). I was amazed at the number of people – especially ranchers and farmers (many of them wives) who kept journals and that they were donated to libraries and universities.
To read about indian attacks by the people who experienced them and at the time they happened, or the brutal daily existence they endured when life meant constantly fighting the elements and nature with barely the basics. It really does give a bit of perspective on life.
Thanks for posting a link to the WPA series – shep. You inspire me to go back and read more.
Eleanor was a frequent here, one of the wealthiest families in the region hosted her.
She spoke for women’s issues, but excercised much restraint. She had to often direct such talk around the expected role of women at the time and try to address things like education, health care, job opportunity, as greater items for all to have and not narrow the subject down.
At the time America needed more of that for everyone (still does).
One of the WPA major items here had a family earn its living that way in a nearby town, helping develop drainaige and levees. A young man from that family went on to be a celebrated voice for the common American experience, The Man in Black, Johnny Cash.
It was wonderful to see Hillary again up close and personal. She is beautiful as ever and funny and she seems at ease. I am glad the campaign is over and she appears happy with what she is doing.
On a personal note- this award was made for her- ER is a hero of hers.
On an even more personal note- As I approached Hillary to thank her for the personal phone call regarding my 2 daughters- she immediately asked me first how they were.
When I told her Denise ahd passed – she listened to a short story regarding a message from Denise to Hillary regarding the call.
She then asked about Louisa by name and said she would contine to Pray for her.
With all that is on her mind – she remembers me and my two girls.
What more csan I say about Hillary- that says it all!