To: koan who wrote (51064 ) 8/18/2013 12:25:21 PM From: Brumar89 1 RecommendationRecommended By
Read Replies (1) | Respond to No liberal Dixiecrats? How come southern Democrats were instrumental in getting FDR's New Deal programs established? How is it that Robert Byrd became beloved by liberals? How is it that JW Fulbright's mentee, Bill Clinton, became beloved by liberals? When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America Ira Katznelson Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time the role of Southern Democrats, simultaneously the most effective legislative bloc supporting the New Deal and indefatigable defenders of racial segregation .lefteyeonbooks.com Congress’s approval of Roosevelt’s New Deal depended on the support of racist Southern Democrats , who were happy to support FDR’s liberal and occasionally radical economic ideas, provided they did not disrupt the Jim Crow culture of the South. FDR willingly accepted this bargain. So poor black Southerners were deliberately excluded from many New Deal programs, beginning with Social Security, which initially did not cover agricultural and domestic workers, the principal occupations of Southern blacks. Again and again, Katznelson shows, Southern members of Congress made sure that African Americans were shortchanged, even by the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Tennessee Valley Authority, which actively discriminated in its employment policies and favored white institutions over black ones.Bilbo, a staunch New Dealer, and his fellow Mississippians in Congress were crucial allies of FDR’s . So when Northern Democrats tried to pass anti-lynching legislation in 1934, FDR refused to help. “If I come out for the anti-lynching bill,” the president told Walter White of the NAACP, Southern members “will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk.”articles.washingtonpost.com
