Op-Ed: Her Own Bodyguard

By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne Eisen

She was the most famous spokesperson for civil rights, at a time when the idea of equal rights for people of color was very politically incorrect. "We can't afford to have two kinds of citizens," she insisted. "We must have equal citizenship for anybody in our country."

And though she was a well-known talker, she also walked the walk. In 1958, at age 74, she made plans to go down to Tennessee to speak at a civil-rights workshop at the Highlander Folk School.

The Ku Klux Klan learned about her plans. The day before her trip, the elderly, gray-haired woman was contacted by the FBI. "We can't guarantee your safety," they told her. "The Klan's put a bounty on your head, a $25,000 bounty on your head. We can't protect you. You can't go." But the little old lady answered, "I didn't ask for your protection... I have a commitment. I'm going."

And she did. She flew down to the Nashville airport, where she was joined by a friend, an elderly white woman aged 71. The pair got into the car, lay a loaded pistol on the front seat between them, and drove into the night. No Secret Service or police escort. Just the two little old ladies with a gun to keep them safe. They set out for their destination, a " tiny labor school[,] to conduct a workshop on how to break the law, how to conduct non-violent civil disobedience." They drove through the heart of Klan territory to teach people how to fight for freedom.

If she were alive, and if Rosie O'Donnell's dreams were to come true, that gray-haired grandmother today would be thrown in jail. "I don't care if you think it's your right... You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun I think you should go to prison," O'Donnell has proclaimed. Hillary Clinton would lecture the old woman about how people shouldn't own guns for protection. But the old lady probably wouldn't listen to Hillary or Rosie, any more than she listened to all the other people who told her what she wasn't supposed to do.

That determined grandmother, of course, was Eleanor Roosevelt. And it was Eleanor's handgun, not some hired bodyguard, that helped her stay alive in the face of real danger.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at National Review Online.