Josephus schools Eleanor in racism

“[After FDR went to work as undersecretary of the Navy under Josephus Daniels], Eleanor Roosevelt brought from New York four servants, all white….

“When the Danielses had the Roosevelts to dinner … Eleanor appreciated her host asking the traditional blessing but had difficulty reconciling the piety with the harsh reprimand Daniels gave her that night at the table.

“Cloaked in his soft Piedmont voice, the secretary of the navy declared it unnatural for whites to assume a servile position in the house of a white family; only Negroes could wait on their superiors. ‘Whom else,’ he said, ‘could one kick?'”

— From “Eleanor” by David Michaelis (2020)