BACK TO GRAHAM JACKSON THUMBNAILS
Life magazine photographer Ed Clark took this powerful picture of Graham Jackson in Warm Springs as the body of FDR was put into a hearse to make the trip to the Warm Springs train station to begin the journey to Washington D.C. to lie in state.
Life Magazine published the photo on April 23, 1945. According to reports filed at the time, Jackson was playing Dvorak's Going Home.
According to this polio support group's website, the night before his death, FDR spent a bit of time "watching Graham Jackson rehearsing numbers for the minstrel show that was scheduled for the following day."
FDR throwing a party at his place featuring a minstrel show? This sounded so bizarre, I decided to get confirmation. I called the Little White House in Warm Springs (now a Georgia State Park) and asked if it was true that a minstrel show had been planned for FDR and his guests and the woman who answered the phone confirmed it.
