The Dual Agenda of African American Organizations since the New Deal: Social Welfare Policies and Civil Rights

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-145
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
African American Organizations ◽  
The New Deal

Congress, Minority Interests, and Federal Policymaking

Oversight ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Minta
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Great Society ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Minority Interests ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
Historical Examination

This chapter examines Congress' historical and contemporary role in overseeing the bureaucracy as it relates to enacting and implementing racial/ethnic and social welfare policies. Most of the congressional politics literature examines whether Congress as an institution pays attention to particular issues; rarely do studies examine to what extent individual legislators devote attention to these same issues by intervening in agency policymaking. The chapter offers a historical examination of the collective efforts of Congress and of individual legislators to advocate for the interests of racial and ethnic minorities during the eras of Reconstruction, the New Deal, and the Great Society by way of providing context for the analysis in the chapters that follow.

Race, Institutions, and the Administration of Social Policy

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The New Deal

The New Deal marked a critical conjuncture of civil rights and welfare policy in American political development. During the Progressive Era, civil rights policy and social policy developed independently and often antithetically. While the American state expanded its reach in economic regulation and social welfare, laying the institutional and intellectual groundwork for the New Deal, policies aimed at protecting the rights of minorities progressed barely at all (McDonagh 1993). But with the Great Depression, the welfare and civil rights agendas came together powerfully. For African Americans, who had already been relegated to the bottom of the political economy, the Depression created even more desperate conditions, and issues of economic opportunity and relief became paramount. The African American political community pursued an agenda that linked advances in civil rights to expansions of the state's role in social welfare (Hamilton and Hamilton 1992).

Harold Washington and Chicago's Schools Between Civil Rights and the Decline of the New Deal Consensus, 1955–1987

2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Carl
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
Cook County ◽  
Equal Educational Opportunity ◽  
Admissions Policy ◽  
The University ◽  
The New Deal

An early break in Harold Washington's political career came via a 1955 speech he delivered on equality of educational opportunity. Leaders of Chicago's Roosevelt University invited the popular alumnus (Washington was the first African-American class president) to speak at the tenth anniversary of the school's founding. The young Assistant State's Attorney shared the platform with such notables as former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and newly elected Mayor Richard J. Daley. In his speech, Washington remembered the university as “an experience in democratic living.” He viewed equal educational opportunity as the school's “cornerstone” because its admissions policy relied on objective examinations. At Roosevelt, Washington found “at all levels… people reaching out to fill whatever gaps [less privileged students] may have had in their backgrounds, which might retard them in their efforts… to be more useful citizens in our greater democracy.” Daley loved the crowd-pleasing speech and began grooming Washington to become the next Cook County prosecutor. Washington's career path, however, led elsewhere.

Look Away! Dixie’s Landed!

2018 ◽  
pp. 123-154
Author(s):  
Nina Silber
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Gone With The Wind ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Civil War Era ◽  
The New Deal

The pro-Confederate Lost Cause memory of the Civil War continued to have considerable staying power during the 1930s, seen most notably in the popularity of the book and film versions of Gone With the Wind. At the same time, the Lost Cause was adapted to fit the sensibilities of this era. Many white Americans, for example, were drawn to the suffering of Civil War era white southerners in light of the economic trials of the 30s. Conservatives also doubled-down on the Lost Cause narrative as they pushed back against aspects of the New Deal agenda, as well as a reawakened civil rights movement and anti-lynching campaign. Finally, conservatives adapted the Lost Cause story to target Northern radicals and communists as the same kind of agitators who punished white southerners during Reconstruction. Black activists and communists tried to expose the racist and unpatriotic underpinnings of the Lost Cause but often fell short.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nina Silber
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Central Objective ◽  
Familial Influences ◽  
The New Deal

This introduction lays out the book’s central objective: to explore why Americans returned to the Civil War throughout the New Deal years. The Civil War offered a prism for exploring the emotional upheaval people experienced in light of the Depression; the political debates that swirled around the state-building initiatives of the New Deal; and struggles over race and civil rights. Also explored here is the evolution of this book, including personal and familial influences on the author.

New Deal Liberalism and Racial Liberalism in the Mass Public, 1937–1968

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Racial Liberalism ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
The New Deal

Few transformations have been as important in American politics as the incorporation of African Americans into the Democratic Party over the course of the 1930s–60s and the Republican Party's growing association with more conservative positions on race-related policies. This paper traces the relationship between New Deal economic liberalism and racial liberalism in the mass public. A key finding is that by about 1940, economically-liberal northern white Democratic voters were substantially more pro-civil rights than were economically-conservative northern Republican voters. While partisanship and civil rights views were unrelated among southern whites, economic conservatives were more racially conservative than their economically liberal counterparts, even in the south. These findings suggest that there was a connection between attitudes towards the economic programs of the New Deal and racial liberalism early on, well before national party elites took distinct positions on civil rights. Along with grassroots pressure from African American voters who increasingly voted Democratic in the 1930s–40s, this change among white voters likely contributed to northern Democratic politicians' gradual embrace of civil rights liberalism and Republican politicians' interest in forging a coalition with conservative white southerners. In attempting to explain these linkages, I argue that the ideological meaning of New Deal liberalism sharpened in the late 1930s due to changes in the groups identified with Roosevelt's program and due to the controversies embroiling New Dealers in 1937–38.

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