Transforming Liberalism, 1933–1940
This chapter focuses on three developments in the mid- to late 1930s that together helped bring civil rights into mainstream liberals' program. The first is African Americans' emergence as a potential source of votes for northern Democrats. The second key change is the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which pushed for a new interpretation of New Deal liberalism that included civil rights as a component. The third change arose as a response to the first two developments: southern Democrats emerged as key opponents of further extension of the New Deal. These changes brought about a new set of political battle lines, in which a coalition of southern conservatives and Republicans opposed the “ardent New Dealers” of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, African Americans, and other urban liberals.