EBB TIDE: Nancy Astor's Greatest Challenge

Two lives-like two waves on their separate journeys (one about to crest, the other at its life's ebb)-meet and mingle. And both become the stronger for it. James Calvin McCray's journey began on the south side of Chicago, where he weathered the Great Depression of the 1930's before going off to serve in World War II and then to teach and become a part of the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950's. McCray's experiences reflect the challenges that race presented to a black man of his generation in American society. Nancy Langhorne Astor's journey began in the post-Civil War south and took her across the Atlantic to England, where she endured two World Wars and became the first female Member of Parliament. Astor's experiences reflect the challenges that gender presented for a woman of her generation in Anglo-American society. Their paths crossed in 1958, when Fulbright Scholar McCray traveled to Britain and was taken under the great lady's wing. Their rapport was immediate and instantaneous. Each could relate to the trials of the other, and Nancy-who strongly believed in equality for women-faced the challenge of encouraging Cal's wife, Vivian, to teach in England, too, and serve as a second positive representative of America and American blacks.