Harper Lee letters say LBJ wanted black, female president

Letters written by author Harper Lee suggest that former President Lyndon B Johnson hoped that the United States would one day be led by a black woman.

Thirty-eight of the To Kill A Mockingbird author’s letters to her friend Felice Itzkoff that are up for auction this week have revealed several anecdotes about the writer and her famous friends.

In one letter, dated January 20, 2009, the day of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, she recalled a conversation she had with actor Gregory Peck about Johnson’s hopes for the future.

Johnson and Peck had discussed the future of the  United States

In a letter dated January 20, 2009, the day of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Harper Lee (left) recalled a conversation with actor Gregory Peck about Lyndon B Johnson’s(right) hopes for the future

Peck had told Johnson that he hoped one day that the United States would be run by a black woman

Peck had told Johnson that he hoped one day that the United States would be run by a black woman

The letter written to Itzkoff said: ‘On this Inauguration Day I count my blessings … I’m also thinking of another friend, Greg Peck, who was a good friend of LBJ. Greg said to him: ‘Do you suppose we will live to see a black president?’ LBJ said: ‘No, but I wish her well.’

Peck played Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and was a lifelong friend of Lee’s.

The starting auction price for Lee’s letters to Itzkoff, written between 2005 and 2010, is $10,000 (£7,580), according to The Guardian.

Earlier this month, a school district in Mississippi announced it was removing Lee’s famed To Kill a Mockingbird from a middle school reading list because its language ‘makes people uncomfortable’.

Biloxi administrators pulled the novel from the eighth-grade curriculum over ‘complaints about it’, school board vice president Kenny Holloway said.

Published in 1960, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee deals with racial inequality in a small Alabama town.

Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch in the 1962 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and was a lifelong friend of Lee's

Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch in the 1962 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and was a lifelong friend of Lee’s

A message on the school’s website says To Kill A Mockingbird teaches students that compassion and empathy don’t depend upon race or education. 

Holloway said that other books can teach the same lessons.

Lee was long thought to have written only the one novel until a ‘sequel’ was released in 2014.

The book, Go Set a Watchman, was abandoned by Lee when she started to write To Kill a Mockingbird, and it is suspected by some that the book was released by her own consent.

In a letter written on April 18, 2009, Lee wrote about US author Euroda Welty, who often criticized Lee for writing only one book.

Lee died in 2016, aged 89. She was suspected to have developed dementia in her later years, though it was never confirmed

Lee was long thought to have written only the one novel until a 'sequel' was released in 2014

Lee died in 2016, aged 89. She was suspected to have developed dementia in her later years, though it was never confirmed

‘She was the only person I ever “wanted to meet”. I once heard her say something about ‘Harper Lee’s case’ – talking about one-novel writers. I could have told her: as it turned out, I didn’t need to write another one,’ Lee wrote to Itzkoff.

Lee died in 2016, aged 89. She was suspected to have developed dementia in her later years, though it was never confirmed. 

In one letter in the series to Itzkoff, Lee wrote about her medications and mental state, even signing one ‘your addled Harper’. 

In a 2008 letter, she wrote: ‘I haven’t got bat sense – I blame drugs, but it’s probably senility … Everybody here is in dementia of some sort + I am no exception. 

‘At least I can remember major events – 9/11, for example, is also Alice’s birthday. Ninety-seven + still taking care of baby sister. Much love, H.’ 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk