Roosevelt’s Rough Deal for African Americans

Campaigns of Franklin D. Roosevelt at Soldiers Field, Chicago, Illinois. Source: Flickr

The American Institute for Economic Research was created 90 years ago to combat the New Deal, a series of vast socio-economic experiments conducted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr. Jekyll from Hyde Park, NY. All of these experiments failed to pull Americans out of the Great Depression and severely hurt minorities, including blacks.

However, for most of the century, the US, state and local governments ran a disinformation campaign, most notably through the public school system, claiming that Roosevelt “saved” America from the Great Depression and helped various oppressed groups in the process. including women, American Indians, and African Americans. Roosevelt, according to this statement, is one of the greatest American presidents, if not the greatest.

In reality, how Garrett Garrett, EC Harwood, Albert J. KnockRoosevelt and other contemporary critics have made it clear that Roosevelt and his New Deal supporters supported the Depression up until the outbreak of World War II in order to continue various socio-economic experiments on Americans and their most sacred institutions, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, which they used for their own purposes. own twisted ends. The new dealers did help members of certain groups out of the depression, but only to lure them into the Democratic Party.

The Indian New Deal, for example, turned tribes who voted Whig or Republican because Democrat Andrew Jackson drove them out of Georgia a long way. trail of tears. Majority still vote Democratic like most African Americanswho up until the New Deal supported the Republican Party, Lincoln’s party.

However, blacks in the South gained little from Roosevelt’s many relief and restoration programs. The South supported the Democrats and suppressed black voters in various ways. In Memphis, for example, in the 1940 election, the Democratic boss turned the police against black Republicans, so Roosevelt didn’t have to curry favor with southern blacks.

In the contested northern states however, blacks received more than their share of federal money. While technically it was not vote buying, in fact it was buying votes. Wealthier black Republicans who couldn’t be bought, such as sports legends Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, were harassed by the IRS on Roosevelt’s orders.

The New Deal also used a message of virtue by placing a few blacks in visible, if not very powerful, positions and encouraging journalists to propagate the illusion of a “black cabinet”. However, even New Deal supporters admitted that racial discrimination still thrives.

What the New Deal gave with one hand, it took with the other. Perhaps his worst policy was to impose a minimum wage in line with blue eagleState minimum wage laws went into effect in 1937. West Coast Hotel Company v. parrishby the Supreme Court, fearing the wrath of Roosevelt, and, finally, federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Those early minimum wage laws were not always mandatory, but when and where they were passed, they tended to increase black unemployment by making it impossible for blacks to negotiate lower wages. While most people tend to think that minimum wage laws “give” workers $0.25 an hour instead of, say, $0.20 an hour, the actual result is that workers earn nothing at all unless they can convince employers that they will produce at least $0.25 an hour.

The New Deal also supported labor unions, the largest and most powerful of which were controlled by white Democrats who cared little for black workers. Some barred blacks from membership altogether, while others sent them into the lowest paid jobs.

In the earliest versions, when recipients received much more than they paid, Social Security Excluded representatives of occupations such as agriculture and domestic work, which were dominated by black Americans. Later, when social security became a trifle for everyone, but especially for blacks, members of these professions were forced to join quasi-pyramidal scheme.

Because it supported goods, not people, the Agricultural Adjustment Act hurt all farmers, but no more than the 100,000 or so African-American tenant farmers it displaced. Thousands more black tenant farmers lost their land without compensationwhen the Tennessee Valley authorities flooded their lands.

The negative effects of the New Deal on blacks are not theoretical speculations. Unemployment among blacks was much higher than among whites, and most tellingly, nearly nine in ten African American families lived below the federal poverty line, even after federal benefits were included. Life expectancy has declined on average, but it has fallen the most among blacks.

Roosevelt hurt blacks in other tangible ways. Whenever he had to choose between bigoted southern whites and blacks, he was always on the side of the former, including in the federal anti-lynching law. Apologists argue that such a law was never passed, which seems a little disingenuous, coming from people who applaud Roosevelt’s successful implementation of much more controversial policies, such as confiscating gold from Americans, forcing socialized annuities down their throats, and weakening the U.S. Supreme Council. The ability of the court to deter abuse of power.

The New Deal indictment of blacks could go on for many more pages. Suffice it to say here that the New Deal was a brutal deal for Americans, especially African Americans. And the New Deal won’t be the last time the Democratic-controlled federal government reaches out its left hand to blacks while firmly holding them right hand.

Robert E. Wright

Robert E. Wright

Robert E. Wright is a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is (co)author or (co)editor of more than two dozen major books, book series and edited collections, including AIER collections. The Best of Thomas Paine (2021) and Financial exception (2019). He also (co-authored) numerous articles for important journals, including American Economic Review, Business history overview, Independent Review, Private Enterprise Journal, Finance Reviewetc Southern Economic Review. Robert has taught courses in business, economics, and politics at Augustana University, New York University’s Stern School of Business, Temple University, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere since receiving his Ph.D. in history from SUNY Buffalo in 1997.

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