Eleanor Roosevelt On Religion, Materialism, and Social Needs in Troubled Times

Eleanor Roosevelt's racial policies attracted notice almost immediately after becoming First Lady.   By late summer 1933, photographs appeared showing ER discussing living conditions with black miners in West Virginia, and the press treated her involvement in the anti-lynching campaign as front page news


Eleanor Roosevelt was a firm supporter of efforts by southern protestant groups such as the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in the mid-1930s to work for social justice in the rural south. In 1938 she helped launch the Southern Conference on Human Welfare and openly defied the Birmingham segregation laws. .  


A lifelong Episcopalian, Roosevelt's own life blended religious beliefs with concern for a variety of social causes and she was highly criticized for her actions on behalf of social justice for all Americans.


The words below are from an article Mrs Roosevelt published in December of 1932 during the Depression.  The article was titled, What Religion Means To Me, and it speaks to the question of religion being more than just a focus on the afterlife.  


As we continue in the midst of of our own troubled economic times, I think Eleanor Roosevelt's words have new meaning and deserve consideration.




Excerpts from What Religion Means to Me, by Eleanor Roosevelt

• It is generally conceded that in a world where material values seem to be dropping out of sight further and further day by day, there is a growing realization that something else is needed. Some of us even feel that amidst the many evils and sorrows and injustices which are the fruit of what we call the depression, there may be emerging one thing which will be of permanent value to us all-namely, a new standard which will set above everything else certain spiritual values. In our mad haste for more and more money and more and more luxury we had almost forgotten to count these as part of our heritage in this country.......

• ......in all cases the thing which counts is the striving of the human soul to achieve spiritually the best that it is capable of and to care unselfishly not only for personal good but for the good of all those who toil with them upon the earth......

• .....The worst thing that has come to us from the depression is fear. Fear of an uncertain future, fear of not being able to meet our problems, fear of not being equipped to cope with life as we live it today. We need some of the old religious spirit which said, "I myself am weak but Thou art strong Oh Lord!" That was the spirit which brought people to this country, which settled it, which carried men and women through untold hardships, and which has given us our heritage of comparative ease and comfort.....

• ...... The fundamental, vital thing which must be alive in each human consciousness is the religious teaching that we cannot live for ourselves alone and that as long as we are here on this earth we are all of us brothers, regardless of race, creed, or color.

• We must honestly try to put into practice some of the things which have always been considered too visionary to be actually tried in everyday life. We cannot give lip service alone to religion today. We hear constantly that prosperity will soon return, that this or that will bring about better business conditions, but we know of many people who have gone down under the strain of material loss and misfortune. The increasing number of suicides makes us realize that many people are feeling that life is too hard to cope with. That feeling would not exist if out of this depression we could revive again any actual understanding of what it means to be responsible for one's brother......

• ........The lack of work, the feeling of helplessness, and the inevitable lowering in many families of the standard of living have a sad effect upon the general morale and habits of life of all the members of the family. Little by little it is being borne in upon us that it is not only life which we have a right to preserve, but that there is something more precious which the need of material things may stamp out of the human soul. Therefore it behooves us so to order our civilization that all can live in the security of having the necessities of life, and that each individual according to his abilities and his vision may at the same time preserve his hope for future growth.......

----Eleanor Roosevelt, December 1932