Race Relations, FDR, and the New Deal
Did the New Deal offer
improvements for African
Americans or support the
status quo while limiting
opportunities for equality?



Eleanor Roosevelt became a staunch
supporter of many minority groups, including
African Americans
Many found jobs with different New Deal
programs, including the WPA & CCC
FDR appointed many African Americans to a
variety of positions in the government



New policies such as the Fair Employment
Practices Committee offered assistance
regarding jobs
Emerging leaders, such as Mary McLeod
Bethune and A. Philip Randolph, accepted
positions & offered a voice for African
Americans
The origins of the movement for equality
Marian Anderson performing at the
Lincoln Memorial (April 9th, 1939)
“I could see my significance as
an individual was small in this
affair. I had become, whether I
liked it or not, a symbol,
representing my people. I had
to appear.” -- Marian Anderson
Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Anderson in Japan
The Marian Anderson Mural by
Mitchell Jamieson at the Interior
Department Building in
Washington, D.C.
Civilian Conservation Corps, Third Corps Area: Yorktown, Virginia,
Co. 1351- vocational projects for "colored veterans"
Civilian Conservation Corps, Third Corps Area: Yorktown, Virginia, Co.
1351- vocational projects for "colored veterans"
NYA:Arizona:"colored boys attending WPA household workers training
center(WPA Divisiion of Employment & U.S.E.S. being served)"
NYA:Phoenix,Arizona:"colored girls attending WPA household workers
training center(serving a tea given for the Phoenix Recreation Dept.)"
NYA:Illinois: "office personnel is supplied by NYA girls to colored YWCA in
Chicago, one of the many tasks at which part-time workers are employed"
Mary McLeod Bethune
•Director of Negro Affairs in the National
Youth Administration from 1936 to 1944
•Member of FDR’s “black cabinet”
•Vice President of the NAACP
•Civil rights activist
•Founded the National Council
of Negro Women
A. Philip Randolph
•Put pressure on FDR to end discrimination in
the military and in government jobs
•Organized the League
for Nonviolent Civil
Disobedience Against
Military Segregation.
•Founded the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
•Helped organize black workers
•Offered advice as civil rights activist
and member of the “black cabinet”
August 5, 1943
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt
White House
Washington, D.C.
My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:
Just a word in these days of crisis and of storm and stress to express my deep appreciation for
the great service you are rendering in you own way to the cause of democracy in general, and
justice for the Negro people in particular. I need not tell you that there is a deep affection
among the Negro people for you, because of your forthright and sincere advocacy in human
justice.
Because of your attitude for equality and freedom for all people you are the subject of severe
criticism among certain sources, but this has been so with the pioneers of human liberty.
I just wanted to send you this note, and I do not expect
an answer.
Sincerely yours,
A. Philip Randolph
International President
APR:RB

Discrimination and segregation existed in the
New Deal programs

The system of Jim Crow existed to prevent
any movement for true equality

New Deal programs failed to improve the
lives of the African Americans that
participated

African Americans were excluded from social
security coverage and minimum wage
provisions

Roosevelt never endorsed demands for an
anti-lynching law and abolition of the poll tax

Roosevelt was concerned about losing white
southern Democratic votes
Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, Halifax, North
Carolina (John Vachon, approximately 1938)
Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on Saturday
afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi (Marion Post
Wolcott, approximately Oct 1939)
Negro sharecropper and wife. Mississippi. They have no tools, stock,
equipment, or garden. (Dorothea Lange, June-July, 1937)
Negro mother teaching children numbers and alphabet in home
of sharecropper. Transylvania, Louisiana
(Russell Lee, 1939)
September 11th, 1944
Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt from Irene C. Stephens of Ashville, NC
“However noble your impulses may be, it is clear that you do not understand
the situation at more than one point. For instance, I know people who had
admired you tremendously up to the time you put forth your ideas
concerning the negro race, which resulted in the disruption of life generally in
the South.”
Criticisms of New Deal Programs
NRA (National Recovery
Administration)
•“Negroes Ruined Again”
•“Negro Removal Act”
TVA (Tennessee Valley
Authority)
•Constructed all-white
towns
•Confined blacks to lowwage jobs
AAA (Agricultural
Adjustment Act)
•Took the land of
African Americans first
CCC (Civilian Conservation
Corp)
•Racially segregated
FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act)
•Did not offer social security coverage
•Minimum wage not enforced

Essential Question:
Did the New Deal offer
improvements for
African Americans or
support the status quo
while limiting
opportunities for
equality?