AAs: Nixon & Ford (1969-1977)

- Did not expect support from black community

- Privately scathed about blacks > 'never in history has there been an adequate black nation'

- Announced that he would downgrade strong desegration procedures > Aeander v Holmes County (1969) said that immediate desegration of pubkic schools at immediate speed could not be used to justify delay

-Nixon supported protestors resisting bussing when Supreme Court ruled in favour of desegration through bussing Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg > but by 1972 due to effective implementation southern schools were better integrated than many other areas of US 

- progress was slow in desgregation of higher education and some private colleges in south still used the colour bar >> but SC case of Green v Connally in 1970 ruled that federal funds would be withheld from higher education institutuions that continued to have policy of segregation 

- Nixon was reluctant to meet black leader and initially declined to meet with Ralph Abernathy, opposed the idea that King's birthday should be a nation holiday. He used FBI to suppress Black Panthers

-  Attacked Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ programme saying a war on poverty was no substitute for a war on crime >> despite this >>> Federal expenditure on social and welfare payments doubled.  Blacks living below the poverty line had decreased 1940=87%, 1950=50% and 1974=30%)

- Nixon’s 1972 Equal Employment Opportunities Act gave the EEOC greater powers of enforcement through the courts. 

- Nixon allowed affirmative action

- The Philadelphia Plan of 1969 targeted federally funded projects with the view to increasing workers from minority groups from 4% to 26% in 4 years.  By 1972, this had been extended to over 300,000 firms.

The Supreme Court confirmed the validity of affirmative action in Griggs v Duke Power Company (1971) > African American unemployment remained twice the level of whites and was over 30% among black youths.  

- Pursued similar policies > non-intervention in civil rights issues and supported white protestors agsinst bussing

-Did have better relations with civil rights leaders than Nixon and appointed first black transport secretary to his administration, William T Coleman