Political Life continued

Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park in a Wheelchair

After Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio in 1921, Mrs. Roosevelt became increasingly active in politics both to help him maintain his interests and to assert her own personality and goals.Throughout Franklin's first presidential term, Eleanor spoke at meetings and conferences about the role of women in politics and her strong disagreement of segregation in the South. She took her passion for this topic very far; she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (a feminist league) when it banned Marian Anderson, an African-American singer, from performing during its conference in Washington, D.C. The previous year, Eleanor also violated a segregation law when she refused to sit in the white section of auditorium at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama. Her passion and devotion made her an easy target for political enemies, but she kept on treading forward and still treated everyone with friendliness and respect. At the age of 14 she had written, “‘…no matter how plain a woman may be if truth & loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her...’”. And thus, her words became true.