The New Deal's Failure to Aid African Americans

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The New Deal's Failure to Aid African Americans

President Roosevelt's New Deal program during the 1930's failed to aid impoverished African-American citizens. The New Deal followed a long, historical chronology of American failures in attempts to ensure economic prosperity and racial equality. During the nearly seventy years after the conclusion of the Civil War, the United States faced a series of economic depressions, unmotivated Congress,' and a series of mediocre presidents. With the exception of Teddy Roosevelt, few presidents were able to enact anti-depression mechanisms and minimize unemployment. The America of the 1920's was a country at its lowest economic and social stature facing a terrible depression and increasing racial turmoil. Author and historian Harvey Wish described the situation as follows:

The decade of the 1920's was an era of intolerance. Labor strife, government repression of political radicals, anti-foreign paranoia, intensified by war and legalized in the racial quotas of the 1924 Immigration Act, were only a few examples of this intolerance. For American blacks, it was axiomatic that any measurable shift to the right in social and political opinion, would bring with it increased difficulties for their race. The 20's were no exception.

Lingering and pervasive racism found in FDR's Cabinet, Congress, and New Deal administrators, contributed to a failure of the Administration's grand scheme to raise America's poor, particularly African-Americans, from the depths of despair. Harold Ickes, President Roosevelt's powerful Secretary of the Interior and the Administration's leading advocate for African-American relief, believed that the problems faced by poor blacks were inseparable from the pro...

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...d up to the New Deal and the issues that Roosevelt failed to address with his programs.

Schwarz, Jordan A. The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

A biography of Roosevelt's cabinet members and how they contributed to the New Deal. Also, the views of many (white) Americans who praised the New Deal for its unbiased programs.

Watkins, T.H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930's. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1993.

An overview of the 1930's and how many Americans' lives were adversely impacted by the New Deal.

Videos

"The New Deal and New York," The Great Depression, prod. Henry Hampton, 57

minutes, PBS video, 1993, videocassette.

A video focusing on the effects of New Deal programs in the city and a comparison of how both black and white industrial workers fared during the 1930's.

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