When Cokie Roberts went to work at NPR, she squared off against the usual obstacles facing women getting ready to smash the glass ceiling and one surprising one: her name.
Frank Mankiewicz, then NPR president, thought the name "Cokie" sounded “preppy,” like Muffy or Buffy. So Cokie Roberts took care of the problem in her own inimitable way, by signing off with her full name: Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs Roberts.
Discussion ended there. Cokie stayed Cokie.
And as Steve Roberts writes in his new book, “Cokie: A Life Well Lived,” “in the end her distinctive name served her very well. She was the only one.”
Roberts said he wrote the book for two reasons. “After she died — and I gave the eulogy at the cathedral here in Washington — I was so touched by the reaction I got from people who wanted to hear more Cokie stories. And I had them.
“There’s the enormous legacy of the public Cokie, but what people may not know was that she did something good for somebody else every day of her life,” Roberts said. “In some ways, that is even more important than the public Cokie. As I say in the book, not everybody can be a TV star, but everybody can be a good person.”
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs Roberts (1947-2019) became “Cokie” when her brother Tommy couldn’t pronounce her name, and that memorable nickname stuck. Roberts examines Cokie’s life through the lens of six of her many roles — wife (she and Steve Roberts were married for 53 years), mother (to daughter Rebecca and son Lee), journalist, friend, storyteller and believer.
He traces the remarkable arc of her life as a groundbreaking journalist, one of the “founding mothers” of NPR, paving the way for many women at ABC News and other outlets, and her midlife turn to becoming a bestselling author of works of popular history celebrating women’s accomplishments.
Those books include “We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters,” “Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation,” “Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation,” “Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868,” and “From This Day Forward,” co-authored with her husband.
Those achievements might seem enough for a lifetime, but Roberts also fills the book with accounts of inspiring acts of kindness, generous mentorship and support, and loyal friendship. And even though the book was written out of grief, there is love and humor on almost every page.
“She always knew what her priorities were, what her values were,” Roberts said. “At the same time that she was a traditionalist, she was a radical. She was a fascinating combination of a very aggressive and modern feminist, who was also very determined not to have women forget the importance of traditional roles. No matter how far we go, we cannot and should not forget the importance of nurturer, caretaker, mother, grandmother.”
“She always knew who she was, and I always admired that about her,” Roberts said.
Part of who Cokie Roberts was came from her New Orleans background.
“She was a very loyal person,” Roberts said. “And she had a great sense of history. Her direct ancestor, W.C.C. Claiborne, was the first governor of Louisiana. And Claiborne Avenue, named for him, is the longest street in the city of New Orleans. Many members of the family served in public life.”
Politics was really the family business, and Roberts recounts how Cokie said she felt “semi-guilty” for not running for office.
“She was the only member of her immediate family not to run for office,” Roberts said. “All four — Hale, Lindy, Tommy and Barbara — ran for Congress. Cokie liked to say, ‘But the only one who never lost an election was my mother.’ ”
Later, when she left her anchor job at ABC in 2002 and faced no ethical barriers to her activism, she became an advocate for women and children as a board member of Save the Children.
“It was no accident that she wound up covering politics for NPR and ABC, and then writing these books resurrecting these untold stories of women’s contributions to American history,” Roberts said. “She saw her mother and her mother’s friends — Lady Bird Johnson, Pauline Gore, Betty Ford — and she grew up with powerful, influential, contemporary women. Cokie could understand Dolley Madison because she resembled Lindy Boggs.”
But more than that, Cokie Roberts understood the lives of ordinary women.
When the Roberts family was living in Greece, they visited a small museum in the town of Marathon. “Looking around, Cokie said, ‘Let’s see what was left of the men.’ Of course there were instruments of war and worship. For the women, there were all of these cooking utensils, makeup kits and jewelry.
"Cokie said, ‘I could have taken up the tools and put on the jewels and felt directly connected to those women of centuries before.’ That was an essential motivation for her. On the back of her tombstone is written ‘Put on the jewels and take up the tools.’ ”
That kind of connection — and sense of continuity — marked Roberts family life as well. “As I’m sitting here at my desk,” Roberts said, “I’m sitting in the house we shared for 42 years here in Bethesda. Her parents bought it in 1952. Once the family decided their lives would be focused on Congress, they moved here. But Cokie never lost her love for New Orleans and for the state of Louisiana — and of course her mother moved back to New Orleans and lived in that great house on Bourbon Street. I’m looking right now at a photo taken on the day of Lindy’s memorial service. Of course, that was at St. Louis Cathedral and there was a jazz band and a second-line. I’m looking at a photo of Cokie holding a parasol and dancing to a jazz band. That’s how she celebrated her mother’s life.”
And this book is how Steve Roberts is celebrating Cokie’s life — and paying forward the wisdom they gained together.
“She was a public figure her whole life … but we chose that life, we weren’t drafted into doing it. And we also came to realize, there were things we’d learned that were helpful to other people.
"I’m a college professor (Roberts teaches journalism and politics at George Washington University), and when I take my students out for a beer, they wouldn’t ask, ‘What’s Al Gore really like,’ they’d ask ‘What’s Cokie really like? How do you manage children and grandchildren? An interfaith marriage?’
"They need personal advice and encouragement, not only professional education. It’s the culmination of a profound observation that we both always felt — we’ve been given gifts, opportunities, experiences, and if by sharing them, we can help guide other people, we should do it.
“People don’t learn when they’re preached at, they learn from stories in which they can see themselves. This is a book of stories — not ‘life lessons from Cokie and Steve.’
"If you find something that makes you laugh or makes you cry or inspires you, well, that’s what I want.”
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