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Crystal Fauset with Eleanor Roosevelt at a rally of African-American Civilian Defense leaders, February 1942.
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Two women seated and clapping their hands in applause.

Credit: Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.

Disillusioned by decades of empty promises from the Republican party, a new generation of black political leaders in the 1930s mobilized the African-American vote for the Democratic party. The first black woman elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Philadelphia's Crystal Bird Faucet then served as assistant state director of the Pennsylvania WPA education and recreation programs. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, she served as assistant director and racial relations director of the Office of Civil Defense during World War II.

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