Georgia Negro Weeps Open-Eyed at the Death of President Roosevelt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

April 12, 1945. The picture of Graham Jackson is the image of that event that I always think of.



The caption of the original photograph starts out:

On the afternoon of the day he died President Roosevelt was scheduled to attend a barbecue at Warm Springs. That afternoon he would have heard Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson, a Georgia Negro, play his accordion. The President had enjoyed Jackson's songs many times in the past. The next day when the President's body was borne slowly past the main dormitory at Warm Springs, where often he used to wave at the patients convalescing in the sun's rays, Jackson stepped out of the watching circle, sadly fingered the strains of Going Home. As he played, C.P.O Jackson wept open-eyed to the mournful phrases of his own lament.

Graham Jackson, from the wonderful Atlanta Time Machine.

Please go to Google Books to see the coverage in the April 23, 1945 issue of Life magazine. You will be amazed.

Roosevelt's Death

(I edited the post to include the start of the caption from the original photograph, which answers a few questions.)

[Captain Hilts]

1. He was in the Navy band, was he not? nt

[Selatius]

2. If FDR had lived a few more years, he probably would've instituted universal health insurance.

He laid down a vision for a future America in his famous Second Bill of Rights.

However, the Democrats of today are a pale shadow of the kind of Democrats FDR worked with in the days when the working class was ready to fight.

[RKP5637]

5. +1,000,000, n/t

[Captain Hilts]

7. That Britain - with Churchill's support - did so shortly after the war would have helped get it here

[Selatius]

11. Yeah, it was the National Health Service Act. It basically was instituted in phases over 5 years.

What's more astonishing is that they built the whole system out of the ashes of World War 2. If the people of Britain could find the political leadership and the manpower to accomplish such a monumental task, then it is definitely within the capability of the US to do so. The only thing serving as an obstacle is persistent corruption in office and a poorly informed/misled public.

[Captain Hilts]

13. Yes. The British did it in a time of HUGE economic hardship. nt

[Captain Hilts]

3. Great story/link on FDR's funeral train route, etc.

http://www.salisburypost.com/Lifestyle/041110-FDR-train

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Thanks for that.

The train ran overnight from Atlanta to DC. There's a picture of the train taken at daybreak in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the train stopped for a few minutes. The picture was taken by a fellow named Rip Payne. He was a railroad special agent, so he had access to places most people could not get to. He was standing in the old interlocking tower where the C&O crossed the Southern to take this picture.

FDR Funeral Train stopped at Charlottesville

The big building overlooking the tracks is the Queen Charlotte Hotel. Both it and the interlocking tower have been gone for years.

There's another picture, taken from the ground. I'll find that one too.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Thanks for that!

The new book on the Funeral train is interesting, though not that well researched.

I always think of ER sitting up all night thinking of the poem about Lincoln's funeral train "and how this was so much like it." What a mindfuck.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I hadn't known about that new book.

The Charlottesville Daily Progress also ran an article in today's paper about the train, inspired by Robert Klara’s new book, “FDR’s Funeral Train: A Betrayed Widow, a Soviet Spy and a Presidency in the Balance.”

Somber citizens saluted FDR’s funeral train

The illustration accompanying the article is a photo of the crowd waiting for the train, but it is not the other Payne photograph that I was looking for.

[RT Atlanta]

9. Procession coming through Atlanta

Thanks to the person above that linked Atlanta Time Machine. That site has a wealth of Atlanta historical information and images on there. The link below shows the funeral train passing through the "Gulch" in downtown Atlanta.

http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/Downtown/gulch_01.htm

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. Atlanta Time Machine

De nada. I love that site.

[pinboy3niner]

12. I know I wept when I visited the FDR Memorial for the first time

when I returned from working 2 months in the Kerry campaign. The timing--just after the election--made it all the more poignant. But the Memorial is absolutely well worth visiting at ANY time . . .

[Captain Hilts]

14. It's best at night. I regret no stone from NYS or GA was used. And they

need to get the trees out from in front of the Eleanor statue because people have to stand in it to take photographs of it.

[virgogal]

15. I've never been there but have visited the one in Grosvenor Square

in London.

I didn't cry,but cried the day he died. He was the only president I had ever had at that time.

[Captain Hilts]

16. The Grosvenor statue drove me nuts because it's taken from a photograph

in which he is standing with the assistance of an aide.

The statue does not include the aide, so his posture makes it look like he's going to fall backwards. They should have changed the angle a bit since he was 'standing' alone on the statue.