Courtesy Tucson Local Media
N ina Roosevelt Gibson is the granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, not to mention a distant relative of Teddy. Beneath a humble demeanor, Gibson embodies the Roosevelt spirit of compassion. As a psychologist, she spends much of her time fighting for the rights of abused children, drug addicts and others who don’t have a voice. Gibson comes to La Fonda (100 E San Francisco St., 982-5511) on June 24 as a guest of the National New Deal Preservation Association, to discuss the enduring impact of FDR’s groundbreaking social initiatives.
How do you carry on the legacy of your grandparents?
For my personal life, I have tried to give back to my country, my community … just as a regular person, as a citizen of my community, not necessarily as a Roosevelt. Every now and then, I do something that does get national press or something like that and I will get phone calls. "Nina, you never told me that you were related to Roosevelt." [In 2010] the state of Arizona denied Medicaid transplant operations to 98 people who had been told they could get an organ transplant, and then the Arizona legislature denied them that operation, which was a death sentence. We banded together and we forced the Arizona legislature to rescind that law. It was very sad, because one person did die before we got it changed. In those instances, yes, people do know who I am and I have allowed the relationship to be made public because it's important. But otherwise, I have just kind of gone about my business.
How did you take the lessons of your grandmother into your professional work?
She was probably one of the most important people in my life, because she was such a warm, wonderful person and I feel she's relevant today. I do speak with various groups about her with the hopes that some of her ideas and some of her views on life, people will remember them and incorporate [them] into their own lives. The biggest lesson was, you don't know all the answers. If I listen to other people, I can always learn. And I can always hear something that I haven't heard before. There is almost no experience in life where I can't learn.
How can the spirit of the New Deal be applied to the social issues of today?
The New Deal was a time of people coming together to solve a very serious economic emergency, with the philosophy and the values of social justice for all. A lot of that needs to be upgraded, certainly in healthcare and various other things. We really need to keep going forward and not let the naysayers turn it around, because we have huge economic and social justice problems that we're still facing. It's not the New Deal in and of itself, those programs, because they may not work today, but it's the values and the philosophy of working together that I would love to see be implemented in our political climate today.
