Explore the Artifacts

[A black and white photograph of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt standing in a room dressed in a dark outfit and holding a fur coat in her left hand. She smiles at the camera.]

In the early 1940s as war was declared in Europe, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at length about the importance of civic engagement and citizenship around the country. She addressed the Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee, urging her audience to “know your government” and become informed about and involved in its activities. Clifton Van Brunt attended the speech along with other juniors and seniors of the college.

[Page one of two from the Democracy in Action: The New World Pamphlet.]

Shortly after her graduation from the Florida State College for Women, Clifton married George Lewis II, another born and bred Tallahasseean and a like-minded partner in social change.

George’s activism found its roots in George Orwell’s 1984, The Federalist Papers penned by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, and in the United World Federalists movement.

The UWF principles are outlined here in the Democracy in Action: The New World pamphlet, a publication distributed by the Council for Democracy during World War II. Florida Governor LeRoy Collins was also an early World Federalist.

[Page two of two from the Democracy in Action: The New World pamhlet.]

[The black and white photograph depicts young men and women in long, formal dresses and suits standing outside in a park. They stand in pairs, with men holding parasols and women holding bouquets of flowers. The people are arranged in a curve with a couple at the center and two children standing in front of them.]

For over a hundred years, Tallahasseans gathered downtown at Lewis Park between Park Avenue, Calhoun Street, and Gadsden Street to celebrate May Day. Each spring, a “court” was selected from local Leon High School students to act as May King and Queen. Clifton was “coronated” in 1936, wearing a dress she designed and sewed herself.

Years later, Clifton remarked that the celebration ended not because the old May Oak finally collapsed, but because the community refused to allow an integrated Leon High School to nominate an African American boy and girl for king and queen.

You can still visit the May Tree’s stump in Lewis Park today.

[The final object in this case is a page from the school newspaper, the Florida Flambeau. The text is very dense in the style of the times, with very few images. Locate the article entitled “First Lady Says Know Government” at the top left of the sheet, beginning the second column.]

A short column in February 23, 1940’s Florida Flambeau summed up Mrs. Roosevelt’s speech, wherein she challenged the girls to “know their government” and become involved, informed citizens in their own communities. Clifton Van Brunt Lewis answered that call to action throughout her life by appealing to city and county commissioners for a variety of causes from integration and historic preservation to environmental protection, and equal rights for all.