Notes from article on AAs in ND

When FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt entered the white house, black and white federal employees ate in different rooms. He speaks out against lawless racially motivated violence but wont champion anti lynching legislation to keep a hold over the democrats.

Legislation

 By excluding domestic and unskilled workers from wage and hour codes, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) left the vast majority of African American workers at the mercy of their employers.

Agricultural Adjustment Act didn't enforce its non descrimination policy, so the land could be sold to whites without giving a fair share, so many AAs were evicted from the land they'd worked on.

The CCC accepted blacks at a lower rate than whites for apprentices.

This isn't to say there was no intent to help.  Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes had a history of opposing oppression: he had served as president of the Chicago chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

positives

1936: the president invites AAs to address the democratic national convention (breaking Jim Crow norms)

Public Works Administration (PWA) building projects to include a specific percentage of skilled African American craftsmen. The Farm Security Administration would help fifty thousand black tenant farmers and sharecroppers buy their own farms. 

Result: parties switch platforms: in 1936 blacks vote 71% for FDR in an historic shift away from Lincoln's party

the "black cabinet" - 45 AAs appointed to administrative positions - a sign that they were being listened to more than ever before  - although FDR resisted most of their suggestions. 

Politics, Segregation, and Racial Violence

southern democrat hold on both chambers never fell below 40% for the entire new deal. 

FDR promised to draft an executive order barring discrimination in war-related industries. Executive Order 8802, issued in early July, also created a commission to investigate complaints of discrimination. In exchange, Randolph called off the march.                                                       There remained plenty of racial discrimination in wages and assignments in the factories building the apparatus of World War II. But by the end of the war, African…