Martha Gruening

Born in Philadelphia to an affluent German Jewish family who valued public service and social justice, Martha Gruening attended the Ethical Culture School in New York. Gruening became an activist journalist who worked with W. E. B. Du Bois for a time. A tireless advocate for women’s rights and African American rights, she was board secretary of the NAACP (1912–1914), and after graduating NYU Law School in 1917, cofounded the first free legal aid organization in New York. “Prepared” is her searing poetic response to a 1916 survey, “Do You Believe in Patriotism?” in The Masses magazine.