During the Great Depression, Black writer Pauli Murray sent First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt a letter asking her opinion on segregation in the South; to her surprise, she received a reply, which began a lifelong friendship between these indomitable ladies. Drawing on letters, journals, diaries, and interviews, Patricia Bell-Scott chronicles how these likeminded reformers from vastly different backgrounds urged each other onward, and in this history—a finalist for the Carnegie Medal—offers a close-up portrait of this evolving friendship changed the cause of American social justice.