Eleanor Raskin - Early Life

Early Life

Eleanor E. Stein was born on March 16, 1946. Her parents, Annie and Arthur Stein, were Jewish and belonged to the Communist Party. Her father, Arthur Stein, was an economist in the New Deal and her mother, Annie, was active in promoting social causes such as civil rights. Before Stein was five years old, her mother, who was the secretary of the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti-Discrimination Laws, allowed her to arrange pastries on a large platter before every meeting. Stein looked forward to the arrival of Mary Church Terrell at these meetings, because Terrell would usually bring a small present for her. On Saturdays, Annie Stein would dress up the children and stand on street corners, passing out literature to passersby. During the month of January or June, Stein would accompany her grandfather on picket lines or hand out leaflets. A family friend, Chavy Wiener introduced her to communism by reading to her a Soviet children's book, The Story of Zoya and Shura.

When Stein was a student at Erasmus Hall High School, she was a member of the honor roll, the editor-in-chief of the school's student newspaper: Dutchmen, captain of the debating team and secretary for the math team. As a junior high student, she wrote a poem with political inflections called "The North Star." The opening lines are as follows:

A heavenly guide for refuge,

The way to freedom

For those escaped from the shackles of slavery

And martyrdom.