What-if anything- did FDR do to support African American workers

Minorities and the New Deal

The 1941 Executive Club 8802 banned racial discrimination in the national defense manufacture.

Learning Objectives

Explain how the Executive Gild 8802 improved hiring practices

Central Takeaways

Key Points

• African Americans were significantly affected by the Peachy Depression.
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt'south decisions that affected African Americans were often shaped by the need to delight white Southerners.
• The New Bargain programs had a mixed impact on African American communities. While some discriminated confronting or hurt black Americans, others benefited black workers and their families.
• The 1941 Executive Order 8802, signed to caput off a civil rights march on Washington, DC, banned racial discrimination in the national defence industry.
• The Fair Employment Practice Committee was established to investigate discrimination violations.
• The 8802 Club was strengthened in 1943 when Roosevelt issued another order that required all regime contracts to take a non-discrimination clause.
• Neither of the orders challenged racial segregation in the South.

Key Terms

• Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters: The commencement labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
• A. Philip Randolph: A prominent leader in the African American civil rights motility, the American labor motion, and socialist political parties. He was the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
• Murray v. Pearson: A 1936 Maryland Court of Appeals determination that required the University of Maryland to immediately integrate its student population.
• Executive Order 8802: An order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit racial discrimination in the national defense industry.
• Fair Employment Practice Commission: An agency established in 1941 to investigate violations of Executive Order 8802 that banned racial discrimination in the national defense manufacture.

African Americans and the Great Depression

No other group in the United states suffered as devastating consequences of the Great Depression as African Americans. While overall unemployment reached approximately a quarter of the labor force, for blackness workers, the rate was well over l%. Those who were able to observe employment were excluded from better paying and more stable professions and usually held menial jobs, for which they were paid lower wages than their white fellow workers. The crunch in agronomics that began long before the onset of the Great Low besides greatly affected African Americans, many of whom nonetheless lived off the country, more than often equally sharecroppers and other tenants than landowners. Segregation was rampant, racial violence mutual (particularly in the South), and at the time when many white Americans struggled for survival, the struggle of black Americans but intensified.

African Americans and New Bargain Programs

Franklin Delano Roosevelt'southward legacy in respect to blackness Americans remains cryptic at all-time. As the 1932 presidential candidate, he embraced the segregationist stand of the Democratic Party. Already equally president, Roosevelt's many critical decisions were driven by his demand to please white Southerners, who held substantial power in Congress. He repeatedly refused to back up anti-lynching legislation and ignored the black ceremonious rights struggle. Historians annotation that the actions that Roosevelt took in support of black communities were oftentimes influenced by Eleanor Roosevelt, who continued to push button her husband to pay more than attention to black leaders and needs of African Americans.

While the New Bargain was formally designed to benefit African Americans, some of its flagship programs, particularly those proposed during the Kickoff New Bargain, either excluded African Americans or even injure them. For example, the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) drove many black farmers from the land. As subsidies were paid to (ordinarily white) landlords for non growing sure crops on a part of their state, black (and white) sharecroppers and other tenants were the first victims of the new policy. The evicted farmers were often forced to migrate to northern cities every bit the southern countryside had no alternative to offer. The 1933 National Recovery Assistants, the main Kickoff New Bargain bureau responsible for industrial recovery, had hardly anything to offer to African Americans equally the National Industrial Recovery Human action'southward (NIRA) provisions covered the industries from which black workers were usually excluded. Neither subcontract nor domestic labor, two sectors where African Americans constituted substantial labor force, were covered under NIRA. Similarly, the original version (later amended) of the 1935 Social Security Act did non provide one-time-age pensions for farm and domestic workers, which automatically excluded a substantial number of senior African Americans. In the South, that number was almost xl%.

Withal, other New Deal programs produced much more than positive outcomes for African Americans. The New Deal calendar stipulated that up to x% of all the programs' beneficiaries must be African Americans (approximately equal to the rate of the blackness population in the The states). Blackness workers participated in all the major programs that created employment, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Assistants, and the Works Progress Assistants. Under the provisions of the latter, the youth coming from the families that had at least ane member working for WPA besides received support that allowed them to continue their high school or college education.

Executive Club 8802

African American participation in the New Deal work programs did not change rampant discriminatory practices. Black workers were notwithstanding delegated to the nigh menial jobs and largely segregated from white workers. When the economy began to abound as a result of war-related need, the situation did non modify. Although production intensified and industrial jobs began to mushroom, African American workers still received the lowest pay, held generally unskilled jobs, and faced hostility from both employers and their white counterparts. In low-cal of the lack of changes under the new economical reality, blackness leaders intensified their efforts to make sure that this time, African Americans would not exist entirely excluded from emerging opportunities.

Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, one of the era'south most prominent civil rights activists and the founding president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Machine Porters, a group of civil rights leaders that included Bayard Rustin, Walter White, and A. J. Muste pressured Roosevelt to react to the ongoing discrimination. They demanded what would be truly radical changes, including desegregation of the armed forces and no employment discrimination. Roosevelt did non agree but when Randolph threatened to organize a massive march on Washington to protestation bigotry, the president grew willing to negotiate. The march would have hurt the already bad reputation that the United states had in respect to its treatment of African Americans, which would have been particularly harmful at the time of war.

In June 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Social club 8802 (sometimes referred to equally the Fair Employment Act). It asserted that companies with authorities defence contracts could not discriminate on the basis of race, organized religion, or national origin. The guild was intended to assist African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in defense industries during production for World State of war Ii. It required federal agencies and departments involved with defense production to ensure that vocational and training programs were administered without discrimination every bit to "race, creed, color, or national origin." All defense contracts were to include provisions that barred private contractors from bigotry every bit well.

A printing conference on the Fair Employment Practices Committee, circa 1942: The FEPC was an agency dedicated to equal opportunity for all races, although it was limited in scope and implementation.

The Fair Employment Practice Commission was established to investigate declared violations and "to take advisable steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid." The commission would too make recommendations to federal agencies and to the president on how Executive Order 8802 could be made most effective. In 1943, Roosevelt strengthened the FEPC with Executive Lodge 9346 that required all government contracts to accept a not-bigotry clause, authorized 12 regional offices and appropriate staff, and broadened the authorisation of the agency to federal government agencies. In the private sector, the FEPC was generally successful in enforcing not-discrimination in the North, did non try to challenge segregation in the Southward, and in the border region, its intervention led to hate strikes by white workers. The FEPC was terminated in July 1945.

Executive Lodge 8802 was the first federal action intended to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States. The president'due south argument accompanying the lodge mentioned the state of war effort, saying that "the democratic way of life within the nation can be defended successfully simply with the help and back up of all groups." He also cited reports of discrimination: "At that place is evidence available that needed workers accept been barred from industries engaged in defense product solely because of considerations of race, creed, color or national origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and of national unity."

A. Philip Randolph, 1942: Philip Randolph was a prominent civil rights activist who helped push Roosevelt into signing Executive Order 8822.

Murray v. Person

Another critical development that took place during the authority of New Deal policies was the decision reached by the Maryland Court of Appeals inMurray v. Pearson . In January 1935, Donald Gaines Murray sought access to the University of Maryland Schoolhouse of Law. His application was rejected because of his race. The rejection letter stated, "The University of Maryland does not admit Negro students and your application is accordingly rejected." The nation's oldest blackness collegiate fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, took on the case of Murray v. Pearson i June 1935. By the time the case reached courtroom, Murray was represented by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Marshall argued that Maryland failed to provide a "separate but equal" educational activity for Murray as required by the 14th Amendment. Since laws differ from land to state, a law school located in some other state could not prepare a hereafter attorney for a career in Maryland. Marshall argued in principle that "since the state of Maryland had not provided a comparable law school for blacks, Murray should be allowed to attend the white academy." He added, "What's at stake here is more than the rights of my client. It's the moral delivery stated in our country'southward creed." The excursion court estimate ordered Raymond A. Pearson, president of the academy, to admit Murray to the police force schoolhouse.

The ruling was appealed to Maryland'due south highest court, the Court of Appeals, which unanimously affirmed the lower courtroom's determination in 1936. The case did not outlaw segregation in instruction throughout Maryland and was not bounden outside of Maryland, but information technology fix an important legal precedent. It also had symbolic significance at the fourth dimension when African Americans faced discrimination in all aspects of their lives.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/minorities-and-the-new-deal/