World War II and Legacy

On December 7, 1941, “the day that would live in infamy,” Japanese planes attacked a U.S. naval base called Pearl Harbor in a surprise offensive. That evening, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt addressed the attack on her weekly radio program, reassuring the public and also calling on U.S. citizens to prepare for action. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Days later, Adolph Hitler declared war on the United States.

In the twelve years of his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered only 30 fireside chats. He used radio strategically, to avoid becoming frequent enough to be written-off or ignored. As World War II unfolded in Europe, German forces occupied or threatened most of the continent and Japan dominated the South Pacific, driving American forces down the Bataan peninsula. FDR used the radio to explain the War Americans, often encouraging his listeners to follow along on a map to better understand the events he described. Historians argue that FDR used his radio program strategically to gain public support for U.S. entry into WWII, which had initially been an overwhelmingly unpopular proposition.

In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a prayer and read it over the radio to 100 million Americans as the World War II invasion of Normandy unfolded. This was likely the largest moment of mass prayer in human history. FDR’s son called his father a “frustrated clergyman,” because FDR acted in in service of others in front of a very large audience.

After FDR passed away in 1945, the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt continued her work in politics, specifically an effort to defend and expand human rights worldwide. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman appointed Roosevelt to the U.S. Delegation of the United Nations, acknowledging Roosevelt’s deep commitment to protecting human rights. As head of the Human Rights Commission, Roosevelt was instrumental in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was approved unanimously by the UN in late 1948. The Declaration was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966.