NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE * The riveting history of how Pauli Murray-a brilliant writer-turned-activist-and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt forged an enduring friendship that helped to alter the course of race and racism in America.

A definitive biography of Murray, a trailblazing legal scholar and a tremendous influence on Mrs. Roosevelt. -Essence

In 1938, the twenty-eight-year-old Pauli Murray wrote a letter to the President and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, protesting racial segregation in the South. Eleanor wrote back. So began a friendship that would last for a quarter of a century, as Pauli became a lawyer, principal strategist in the fight to protect Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a co-founder of the National Organization of Women, and Eleanor became a diplomat and first chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.