ional population, because their problem was seen to be one primarily of economics, and their advancement was perceived to be closely linked to white America, so success was to be achieved through broad-based general economic and social reform (Weiss 1984: 37). Although it did not target them specifically because blacks were not powerful enough a constituency to warrant personal attention, blacks were benefiting from the New Deal, and they needed all the help they could get. Said one newspaper, “if any group needs the New Deal… it is black Americans” (Weiss 1984: 45). And so, by the time election came around, many black republicans had defected, not to the Democratic party per say, but rather to Roosevelt and his New Deal economics. Race and civil rights issues were never a primary concern of the Roosevelt administration, but there was communication between the White House and black leaders such as Walter White. The New Deal era, “transformed the methods of the two oldest nation organizations for racial advancement , the national Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League “ (Weiss 1984: 62). In the past, rallying blacks to political causes had been difficult, because politics had little relevance to most black people, because neither party ever focussed on racial issues, but with the advent of the New Deal, “the federal government daily made decisions that directly affected the well-being of individual black Americans” (Weiss 1984: 63). This became the basis for getting the black community involved politically, and for organizing them as a group to put pressure on the government. Although the NAACP had been lobbying and performing the part of an interest group for a quarter-century, now it was able to actually get black Americans involved and have a chance at procuring rights for the black people.By publicizing the commitments it was able to obt...
