1. African Americans and the New Deal

2. What was the New Deal? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“FDR” – 32nd President – 1933 to 1945
Domestic program
Specifically, his efforts to . . .
end the great depression
reform the American economy

3. A turning point in American race relations
The New Deal marked a real turning point in American
White Americans attitudes toward Blacks begin to change
Members of Roosevelt’s team really wanted to help Blacks
Partly for humanitarian reasons
Blacks were suffering greatly during the depression
Partly for practical political reasons
They wanted the support of Black voters

4. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Leading advocate of Civil Rights in presidents inner circle A genuine humanitarian concern for the oppressed Cared about improving race relations in America Openly friendly with black people “The conscience of the New Deal”

5. The Conscience of the New Deal
1939 – Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR
The Daughters of the American Revolution
They had refused to let a Black woman sing
Constitution Hall
Marian Anderson
Eleanor had her sing at the Lincoln Memorial
Eleanor Roosevelt joined the NAACP in 1939

6. The Black Cabinet FDR appointed race-relations advisors
in major federal departments.
At first, Roosevelt appointed Southern whites
Black leaders protested
FDR appoints well-educated Blacks to these posts
Mary McLeod Bethune
Robert C. Weaver
William H. Hastie
This so-called “Black cabinet” was chiefly symbolic

7. African Americans and the Great Depression
Blacks suffered greatly during Great Depression
“the last hired and first fired.”
New Deal programs helped ALL unemployed workers
Blacks and whites received “relief”
Blacks and whites were given jobs – public works

8. African Americans begin to vote Democratic
African Americans felt indebted to President Roosevelt
Most African Americans had voted Republican
As they had since Reconstruction
The party of Abraham Lincoln
Blacks were tired of broken promises
1936 – 75% of African Americans vote Democrat
They supported Roosevelt’s re-election

9. Continuing the Great Migration
Programs administered with less discrimination in the North than in the South
This encouraged black migration to the North.
This meant more Blacks would vote Democratic in later elections

10. Discrimination in New Deal programs
FDR avoided alienating the southern wing of his party
Many were conservative segregationists
Racists who supported Jim Crow segregation
Some New Deal programs were less helpful to Blacks
Some even had a negative impact
Federal Housing agencies
supported & strengthened residential segregation
Agricultural Adjustment Administration
paid land owners to reduce cotton acreage
forced 100,000 black sharecroppers off the land.

11. Roosevelt and anti-lynching legislation
President Roosevelt was publicly against lynching
Privately in favor of a federal anti-lynching bill.
Refused to make it “must” legislation
The political cost was too high
Didn’t want to lose white southerners in Congress

12. Whites run New Deal programs in the South
FDR promoted “grassroots democracy”
control of federal programs given to local governments
Whites ran New Deal programs in the Southern states
They discriminated against African Americans
Distributed fewer “relief” checks to Black people

13. African Americans help themselves
Blacks often had to help themselves
The Urban League – lobbied for economic progress
NAACP – fought to make lynching a federal crime
Joint Committee on National Recovery (NAACP)
fight discriminatory policies and expose inequality
“Don't Buy Where You Can't Work” campaign
Racial tension over unemployment and housing
Race riot – Harlem

14. African Americans benefitted from the New Deal
20% of Works Project Administration jobs went to Blacks FDR issued an executive order to halt pay discrimination Public Works Project established the first quota system for hiring Blacks Racial integration slowly returned to government