New Deal Or Raw Deal? Black Americans in the Roosevelt Years

NEW DEAL OR RAW DEAL? Black Americans in the Roosevelt Years Library of Congress 20 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2020 | www.MoAF.org By Jill Watts Black mill workers were laid off or cut Weaver’s father, Mortimer Grover back to starvation wages at a far greater Weaver, came from far humbler ori- During the presidency of Franklin D. Roo- rate than white workers. gins. He was born on a farm in Fauquier sevelt, Black Americans were appointed At night, Weaver meticulously pored County, VA. His mother was a domestic to federal posts at historically large num- over the numbers, mining them for irre- and his father was a former white slave- bers. Together they eventually formed futable proof that Black communities holder who had sided with the Confed- an advisory body known as the Black were in a downward spiral. That sum- eracy. As a child, Mortimer worked in the Cabinet, which was led by the crusading mer he tracked the data of 12,000 Black fields. But when he reached his teens, he educator Mary McLeod Bethune and the cotton-mill workers nationwide who had was sent off to attend high school in the brilliant economist Robert Weaver. But managed to hang on to their jobs. He District of Columbia. A few years after early on Black inclusion was met with stiff determined that 75% of them were grossly graduation, he secured a prized position resistance, and appointees had to fight for underpaid and overworked, despite the in the city’s post office. A careful guardian both a voice in the administration as well National Recovery Administration’s man- of his earnings, Mortimer Weaver saved as relief for the Black community. dates regarding minimum wages and his money and, in 1901, married Florence maximum hours. Times were hard and Freeman. He purchased a home in Brook- In August 1933, Robert Weaver returned people took any job they could get—even land and, eventually, a seaside cottage for to his academic post at Greensboro’s if they earned almost nothing. This was, as weekend getaways. The Weavers quickly North Carolina Agriculture and Technical Kansas City’s Plaindealer pointed out, a added two sons to their family, Mortimer College. He dreaded going back. While he “new kind of slavery.” Grover Jr. and Robert Clifton. was a popular professor, he found teach- As Weaver walked Greensboro’s Black The Weavers were intensely proud ing there a chore. He felt smothered by neighborhoods, he witnessed firsthand the of their sons and were determined that Greensboro’s omnipresent segregationist impact of the Great Depression and the they should have the finest that could be traditions and laws; he isolated himself, suffering it caused. Families were home- offered to African American children. The refusing to patronize segregated stores less; children went hungry. For Weaver, closest Black secondary school was the top and entertainment venues. the experience marked the beginning of in the country—Paul Laurence Dunbar In Greensboro and its surroundings, a transformation. His determination to High School. Dunbar was rigorous and Weaver became exposed to the rawest resist American racism grew. “The lash challenging, requiring students to master versions of white southern racism. As he of prejudice is not the overt lash; it’s the all academic disciplines. In Weaver’s era, traveled in and out of town, he passed subtle lash of feeling yourself up against 80% of the school’s graduates attended sharecroppers’ shacks and the cotton and an iron block of prejudice that is the most northern colleges; many were admitted to tobacco fields where Black farmers barely cutting. Because I had been protected, I the most prestigious in the nation. scratched out a living. The Depression had felt the cut more deeply,” he reflected. Robert Weaver graduated near the top hit North Carolina hard. By fall 1933, 25% The Robert Weaver who came to of his class at Dunbar. In 1925, he enrolled of all families there depended on some Greensboro was a man of limited but rare at Harvard and declared an econom- kind of public or private assistance; the privileges. In 1933, he was only 26, but ics major. After finishing his bachelor’s NAACP estimated that the rate was far he was impressive in nearly every way. degree with honors, he then attempted higher for the Black rural population. Handsome, with a chiseled jaw and a sly to do what no African American had And poverty haunted not only rural smile, Weaver radiated confidence, pride ever done before—earn a PhD from Har- areas but also the cities. The textile indus- and dignity. His grandfather, DC dentist vard’s extremely conservative econom- try was one of North Carolina’s larg- Robert Tanner Freeman, remained a cele- ics department. It was not a welcoming est employers, and it had collapsed with brated figure in Washington’s Black com- environment. Weaver remembered that the Depression’s onset. Large textile mills munity. His grandmother, Rachel Turner, the department’s most influential scholar, stood on the hills surrounding Greens- born out of wedlock to white parents, had Frank Taussig, “didn’t think that Black boro—they had dominated the city’s eco- been raised by an African American fam- men had aptitude for economics.” None- nomic life. As the economy deteriorated, ily and lived her life as a Black woman. theless, Weaver excelled. After passing his Weaver’s mother, Florence was born comprehensive examinations with high shortly before her father’s early death. marks, he focused on crafting his thesis, Rachel Turner remarried in 1890—and entitled “The High Wage Theory of Pros- well at that. Her second husband, Albert J. perity.” In 1931, he headed to Greensboro Farley, was a clerk for the Supreme Court, to teach. and his salary enabled the family to move On weekends, he often returned to Impoverished Black children in the Mississippi to the middle class, interracial Washing- Brookland to work with his long-time Delta, July 1936. Dorothea Lange, photographer. ton, DC suburb of Brookland. friend John P. Davis. They founded an www.MoAF.org | Summer 2020 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 21 Bettmann Mary McLeod Bethune, Black Cabinet leader and the National Youth Administration’s Director of Negro Activities, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and NYA Executive Director Aubrey Williams at the opening session of the National Conference on Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth sponsored by the NYA in Washington, January 7, 1937. organization, the Negro Industrial League, Industrial League made its first splash, Davis New Deal by southern Democrats, who dedicated to exposing the weaknesses began lobbying for the National Recovery consistently opposed any kind of support becoming alarmingly apparent in the Administration to give his partner a posi- for African Americans. New Deal’s main jobs program under tion. The agency’s answer was a flat no. Reportedly, the Secretary of the Inte- the National Recovery Administration. In late August 1933, Weaver learned that rior, Harold L. Ickes, a Chicagoan with Testifying before congressional commit- the Roosevelt administration had estab- Rosenwald ties, finally got the plan in tees throughout 1933, Davis and Weaver lished the Office of the Special Adviser on front of the President. Ickes could be gained increasing attention in the Black the Economic Status of Negroes. The idea irascible, but as the past president of the press with Davis emerging as the charis- had originated with the Rosenwald Fund’s Windy City’s NAACP, he had established matic leader and Weaver appearing as the Edwin Embree and Will Alexander, who a reputation for being liberal on the issue dignified academician with the facts and had been peddling it around Washington of race. Roosevelt approved the proposal figures. throughout the summer. Alexander had and placed the office under Ickes, allowing Weaver had also set his sights on a gov- become convinced that Roosevelt “was him to choose the man to occupy the spe- ernment job. In the spring of 1933, just after a sort of messiah” and that “perhaps the cial adviser’s position. Rather than consult President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, next stage in race relations in this country with the many African American lead- he had begun attempts at securing a federal would sort of center around what hap- ers he knew personally, Ickes demanded post. Government work had been a tradi- pened in Washington, DC.” The Rosen- Alexander and Embree provide him with tion in the Weaver family and among their wald Fund proposed to underwrite the a list of names. Ickes picked the last name social set. Yet, like other African Ameri- special adviser’s salary and office expenses on their list—Clark Foreman, a white cans seeking federal employment as the for the first few years. That would allow southerner. New Deal dawned, Weaver was repeatedly Roosevelt to avoid a confirmation process The reaction from the Black commu- rejected. That summer, after the Negro that might trigger retaliation against the nity was shock and dismay. The NAACP 22 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2020 | www.MoAF.org Cornell Capa Bettmann Clark Foreman, first head of the Office of the Special Adviser In 1934, Black Cabinet founder Robert C. Weaver would succeed Clark on the Economic Status of Negroes, pictured in 1946 at Foreman and take over leadership of the Office of the Special Adviser on a Citizen’s Political Action Committee meeting. the Economic Status of Negroes. Weaver became the first Black American to serve in a White House Cabinet after President Lyndon Johnson appointed him the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1966. telegrammed Ickes, protesting that there with Ickes, he argued that an African grandfather had fought for the Confed- were numerous African Americans, with American appointee was far more quali- eracy and had been a leader among white equal or superior educational credentials, fied to be a special adviser on issues criti- southern Democrats.

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