The New Deal’s Failure to Aid African Americans President Roosevelt’s New Deal program during the 1930’s failed to aid impoverished African-American citizens. The New Deal followed a long, historical chronology of American failures in attempts to ensure economic prosperity and racial equality. During the nearly seventy years after the conclusion of the Civil War, the United States faced a series of economic depressions, unmotivated Congress,’ and a series of mediocre presidents. With the exception of Teddy Roosevelt, few presidents were able to enact anti-depression mechanisms and minimize unemployment. The America of the 1920’s was a country at its lowest economic and social stature facing a terrible depression and increasing racial turmoil. Author and historian Harvey Wish described the situation as follows:The decade of the 1920’s was an era of intolerance. Labor strife, government repression of political radicals, anti-foreign paranoia, intensified by war and legalized in the racial quotas of the 1924 Immigration Act, were only a few examples of this intolerance. For American blacks, it was axiomatic that any measurable shift to the right in social and political opinion, would bring with it increased difficulties for their race. The 20’s were no exception. Lingering and pervasive racism found in FDR’s Cabinet, Congress, and New Deal administrators, contributed to a failure of the Administration’s grand scheme to raise America’s poor, particularly African-Americans, from the depths of despair. Harold Ickes, President Roosevelt’s powerful Secretary of the Interior and the Administration’s leading advocate for African-American relief, believed that the problems faced by poor blacks were inseparable from the problems facing all Americans. While the New Deal was designed to aid all suffering Americans, in practice, the well-intended programs could not ensur...
