A Wise Old Wizard Once Said by Eleri Grace

 While there are so many inspiring WWII-era quotes from Allied political and military leaders ranging from Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt to General Eisenhower, the titles of my Clubmobile Girls novels are drawn from the speeches/writing of Eleanor Roosevelt. 

"When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted" -- Eleanor Roosevelt

This quote, like many attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, can't easily be linked to a definitive source. It is possibly connected to her involvement in a controversy surrounding African-American opera singer Marian Anderson. Howard University had invited Anderson to sing as part of a concert series, but they lacked a venue large enough to accommodate the expected audience. The university requested permission to host the event at DAR's Constitution Hall, but DAR policy at the time only permitted white performers. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned her membership in the DAR in protest. 

Howard University then approached the government to ask if the concert might be held outdoors on the National Mall. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes arranged for Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and introduced her to the crowd. The concert on April 9, 1939 attracted an audience of at least 75,000 people and marked an important step in the struggle for civil rights and racial equality. Anderson performed at Constitution Hall at the invitation of the DAR in January 1943 and several times in the decades thereafter. 

"Human beings forget so fast, if the generation that fights today is to lay the foundations on which a peaceful world can be built, all of us who have seen the war at close range must remember what we see and carry a crusading spirit into all of our work" -- Eleanor Roosevelt ("My Day" column, 30 August 1943)

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote this column from Wellington, New Zealand, one of the first stops on her month-long tour of the South Pacific in 1943. 

In this particular column, though she has only begun her tour, Eleanor paid tribute to the nurses and the Red Cross Girls: "There are never enough people to do the work and yet it gets done. My hat is off to every woman working in this area."

Allied military commanders initially pushed back against the First Lady's planned tour -- it was a drain on valuable resources and too dangerous. She persisted, as she so often did, and won over her critics with her charm and fortitude, keeping up a crushing schedule designed to allow her to see and give comfort to as many of the servicemen as possible. 

Though I haven't researched the source or context for this quote attributed to Eleanor, it ties in with my title for this blog at long last: "In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." 

Our choices define us, our choices are entirely up to us. 

As Albus Dumbledore told Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." 

That's one of my favorite quotes from the beloved Harry Potter series, and my personal favorite quote (our prompt for this month). I'd like to think Eleanor Roosevelt would have approved it too. Her choices defined her remarkable life, and she certainly had the courage to be counted as an activist and crusader for numerous issues relating to human rights.