It is no secret that through the decades, The United States government has had its ups and downs with how well it serves and affects the people. Even in today’s society, not every person can be pleased or see eye to eye. Although the issues of inequality between blacks and whites are far in the past, it took quite a journey for our government to change for the better and accommodate everyone fairly. After reading When Affirmative Action Was White, it was enlightening of some of the harsh truths of what African Americans had to go through during and after the Great Depression once the New Deal was introduced. When the infamous Great Depression weighed heavy over Americans, there was almost nothing the people could do but wait. To completely avoid and prevent anything similar to the Great Depression happening again, Franklin D. Roosevelt began proposing The New Deal, which sparked society’s interest in him for the next presidential candidate. The New Deal proposed many new policies that would put the people back to work, provide relief to Americans, and help society climb out of the hole of the Great Depression. With this New Deal sounding so appealing, African Americans felt they would finally leave behind the discrimination, but in the end, the New Deal did no such thing. Unfortunately, The New Deal ended up creating policies that further excluded non-whites and made life unnecessarily hard for them.
Beginning in October of 1929, America faced one of the worst stock market crashes in history. The majority of banks collapsed, successful businesses began to close, unemployment was widespread, and many people who were wealthy ending up losing almost everything. America had lost all hope and had no trust in the government anymore. The majority of black americans had begun to turn away from president Lincoln’s current republican party, and support Roosevelt’s democratic party, despite the presence within the New Deal coalition of southern democrats who were extremely protective of Jim Crow (Katznelson). Roosevelt’s New Deal was lightly talked about because its policies had not all quite been finished. Aside from the uncertainty, Americans had nothing left to lose and therefore in 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president, and society looked to him for the upcoming change.
As the people were unsure but hopeful of their new president, Roosevelt addressed the public for the first time with his famous inaugural address. Roosevelt reassures the people and tells them, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt). Roosevelt brought life back into America and America placed its faith in him. Shortly after his inaugural speech, Roosevelt began carrying out the New Deal. Although the New Deal consisted of many different policies, programs, and changes, there was many that would positively impact Americans, but only at first glance did these changes seem to benefit everyone fairly.
First, the Emergency Banking Relief Act was placed, which was an attempt to support and guide some of the nation’s most distraught banks by closely examining the financial state of the corporation. Soon after, Roosevelt turned his attention to the people and their unemployment. The New Deal proposed the Emergency Conservation Work Act which adopted the Civil Conservation Corps that ended up employing over three million men in the conservation work field. Along with the Work Progress Administration, this was a jobs program that offered work to people in need. Next came the Federal Emergency Relief Act which provided work and cash assistance for people who were continuing to struggle from the Great Depression. The New Deal even brought programs that we still see in our government today such as the Security Exchange Commission (SEC), which prevented failure in the market, as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which entailed for money in banks to be completely protected in case of another instance of the banks closing.
From the beginning of the New Deal era, Roosevelt consistently tried to promote civil rights through it, and have a large presence of equality through all the policies. Despite Roosevelt’s efforts, government administrations continued to lean towards discrimination. Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s ideas and legislation would only be recognized if he had support from the southern representation in congress. Out of Roosevelt’s control and to avoid losing support from southern whites, it was a reoccurring issue that equal rights began to be diminished and set aside in many of these policies.
It was an extreme step back and honestly upsetting decision Roosevelt had to make. He seemed to believe that by sacrificing African American’s rights, it would be in better interest for society as a whole; but in the end the discrimination and exclusion of blacks in the New Deal caused many problems in the long run. After Roosevelt’s decision, more and more New Deal programs continuously discriminated against African Americans.
The New Deal created many policies that dealt with and effected work, war, and excluded the vast majority of African Americans (Katznelson 3). Some of the programs of the New Deal that obviously excluded non-whites would include the National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Social Security Act (SSA), and even the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The NRA was created to execute federal planning for the U.S. economy, which was still rebuilding at the time. Although at first glance this program seems to be benefiting everyone, the NRA gave priority to whites for available jobs and gave blacks a tremendous lower pay scale. Same with the SSA, it excluded blacks by not including the category of the jobs that they could find, which in the end gave them absolutely no beneficiaries. The AAA affected blacks in a big way as it took them out of their agricultural jobs. With blacks struggling for jobs, they also began to struggle for housing. The FHA sets ideals for building and guaranteed loans from banks for home building. Even with the FHA promise, blacks were refused the mortgages they needed to access homes. In addition to the struggles non-whites went through on a daily basis, even their children had to witness it as well. The New Deal had non-white children being denied of education, when the National Education Association asks for federal aid to eduction, it permits discrimination to be perpetuated by the present local authorities (Katznelson 6-8).
Throughout the New Deal, african americans were continuously discriminated against. This discrimination that african americans faced was completely ridiculous and concerning. From the beginning, they supported Roosevelt and put their trust in him to help them and get past these civil rights conflicts, but in the end they were totally divided from whites in the New Deal, and really suffered from it. Sadly, this exclusion was all only because of the southern democrats influence in congress. Roosevelt did not want to see these civil rights brushed under the rug, but ended up forgetting what he truly believed just to please the rest of America. Thankfully once WWII commenced, society and government was lead in the right direction to not discriminate as much because the war opened up so many opportunities for both blacks and whites, and the New Deal was no longer so heavily depended on. It is just so unfortunate that the New Deal caused such a controversy by excluding blacks, when the New Deal could of really helped all americans no matter what skin color.