A Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt

Dear Eleanor,

The times, they are strange. This world you fought for and believed in is coming apart. Every day the freedom you defended and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that you helped draft are under assault.

We have come through eight years that too closely resemble those of the great enemy of your day. Eight years of lies, torture, growth of a police state, abridgment of civil liberties. I should like to look at our first President of color as a blessing-but I know his back is watched by Wall Street-and there in the police state lies.

We have much work to do, my dear. I hope very much to maintain my optimism; that I may have the same boundless energy and dedication as you yourself did. I take great comfort in images of you-always on the hustle-talking to soldiers, to people on the soup lines, to the homeless. It is marvelous to count such ladies, such patriots as yourself among our cultural heroes and national treasures. Perhaps the coming hardships shall galvanize many millions more of us into the ranks of 21st century Armies of Eleanors! Can you imagine that? Hundreds of millions of Americans taking to the streets, taking on the structure of the establishment and working ceaselessly for something so much grander than ourselves.

I echo your prayer, dear Eleanor, for "a world made new".