These expectations would remain unfulfilled for the next decade.4 In 1933, immediately upon entering the presidency, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasted little time and created what would comprise the single largest economic reform program in the history of the United States: The New Deal. Roosevelt hoped that his New Deal would provide much needed relief to working class Americans during that period of devastating depression. In the first 100 days of Roosevelt’s presidency, during a special session of Congress, major recovery programs were passed. The most notable programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps (March 21, 1933); the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (May 10, 1933); and the National Relief Administration (June 16, 1933). Although the Works Progress Administration (April 28, 1935) had not been formed yet, it later became known as one of the single most important relief programs of the 20th century. Congress passed these programs with the intention that they would ensure a decent living for all able-bodied Americans. What the new programs failed to accomplish however, was to focus on the needs of a large percentage of African-Americans. Rural African-Americans especially, received a disproportionate amount of aid from the government, and suffered immensely in contrast to the industrialist and middle class citizens in the cities. From the African-American perspective, the New Deal represented a series of biased laws, failed programs, and racism. African-American critics of the relief programs were valid in concluding that the New Deal did not meet their expectations. Little had been done to provide African-Americans with relief from the depression and from America’s apparent ambivalence towards racism. Prominent African-American Ralph J. Bunche, a critic of New Deal programs, concluded in 1936:After two years of frantic trial and error, the New Deal, and most of its elaborate machinery,...
